137 quotes
Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.
Patriotic and tribal feelings belong to the squalling childhood of the human race, and become no more charming in their senescence. They are particularly unattractive when evinced by a superpower.
And Yet...: Essays (2015)
I haven't met anyone, in holy orders or out of it, who isn't also a primate. And neither have you.
There is no reason at all why there aren't enough people to guard New Orleans and to help stabilise Baghdad.
I have been "in denial" for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.
Mortality (2012)
The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has — from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.
I'll give you all the miracles and you'll still be left exactly where you are now, holding an empty sack.
David Irving is not just a Fascist historian. He is also a great historian of Fascism.
In whichever way a democratic system might be sick, terrorism does not heal it; it kills it. Democracy is healed with democracy.
And Yet...: Essays (2015)
If this was the plan - was it made by someone who likes us?
The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.
Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere (2000)
All this could be part of a plan. But it’s some plan, isn’t it?; With mass destruction, pitiless extermination and annihilation going on all the time.
It's a big mistake to think that your own cause, or your own country, or your own side has God in its corner. For one thing, it commits the sin of pride.
Religious ideas, supposedly private matters between man and god, are in practice always political ideas
Principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.
The four most overrated things in life are champagne, lobsters, anal sex and picnics.
Thus we learn again that what people set down day to day is of greater value than what they try to synthesize retrospectively into a grand sweep or theory.
And Yet...: Essays (2015)
All the excitements of a prohibited book had their usual effect, one of which, as always, is to expose the fact that the censors don't know what they are talking about.
Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere (2000)
Is there anything that is forbidden to anybody who says they have God on their side? Who says they have God with them? Is there any evil that they forbid themselves to do?
The disquieting thing about newscaster-babble or editorial-speak is its ready availability as a serf idiom, a vernacular of deference. "Mr. Secretary, are we any nearer to bringing about a dialogue in this process?"
For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports (1993)